The nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) has been widely used in current molecular diagnostics, including infectious diseases, oncology, and pharmacogenomics. It provides a user-friendly and accurate result and is less time consuming compared to traditional diagnostic methods. In order to perform molecular diagnostic studies such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and isothermal amplification, nucleic acids are extracted from biological materials, such as stool samples and blood samples. A wide array of methods has been developed for nucleic acid extraction, producing numerous tradeoffs among costs, ease of use, time required, materials including hazardous chemicals used, and quantity and quality of extracted nucleic acids.
Current available methods require lengthy enzymatic digestions, incubations, separation and nucleic acid precipitation or elution. Also a boiling step is the most common method used for crude nucleic acid preparations. In many cases, the quality and quantity of the isolated nucleic acids are not amenable to downstream applications such as nucleic acid amplification. Preparation of nucleic acid samples prior to amplification and detection of specific targets is the most challenging step of molecular diagnostics, because a wide variety of compounds present in biological samples can degrade and denature DNA polymerase, or reduce enzymatic activity of the DNA polymerase in a PCR or an isothermal amplification reaction. Therefore, an optimal nucleic acid purification method can reduce or eliminate the inhibition of amplification by components of biological samples to achieve successful amplification. Simple and rapid methods that do not require extensive sample processing and that can be adapted to a clinical laboratory are needed for producing quality nucleic acids free of inhibitors of amplification.